Tonto grabbed her finger.
Buccari looked down at the clinging animal and tried to smile. She gently broke loose, took three steps backward, and waited. Tonto hopped over to his comrades, while the creature with the pike waddled forward and placed the weapon at Buccari's feet. Uncertain what to do, she turned and looked at the men. She sighed with relief as Tatum and Shannon put their weapons on the ground. MacArthur, finger to his lips, walked over to Tatum and pulled Tatum' s knife from its calf scabbard. He moved past Buccari and laid the knife at the feet of the foremost animal. MacArthur stepped next to Buccari and picked up the pike at her feet. The animal bent easily and picked up the knife. And then it bowed, elegantly. MacArthur bowed in return. Standing erect, MacArthur startled everybody, including the beasts, by cheerfully whistling the seven-note ditty. As if rehearsed, Tonto, standing close to his fellows, whistled the same notes in return but stopped short of the last two. MacArthur firmly whistled the two final short notes.
Tension palpably lessened, but movements were still guarded, nerves taut. The newcomers grabbed their injured comrade and hopped to the cliff's edge. Without looking back, they pushed off and dropped from sight. Piercing screams shattered the silence.
Chapter 18. Gorruk
"They deserved to die," Gorruk snapped, his huge body trembling, his brow tufts oscillating like tuning forks.
"You are hopeless," Jook rumbled. "Why do you act so? You represent my regime. Executing an entire regional government was stupid!" They lounged in Jook's private chambers, drinking kotta wine and smoking precious wahocca cigars. The imperial entourage had been dismissed.
"Regional bureaucrats!" Gorruk roared, surprised, and growing angry. He expected commendation for his decisiveness. "They would not obey procurement orders. My armies must be fed."
"Yes, yes, it is critical that your forces be provided for—their moment draws near—but even useless bureaucrats have purpose," Jook lectured. "There will be utter chaos until they are replaced. Tax revenues will disappear."
Gorruk glared sulkily at the Supreme Leader. The politics of government were too much for his direct mentality. He struggled, resisting mightily the urge to throw the emperor-general's own past back in his face. General Jook' s history—the scourge of the unification wars—was replete with mayhem and terror.
"You cannot threaten death whenever someone disagrees with you," the ruler preached. "I have learned this the hard way. Too much fear can be counter-productive. You create only martyrs."
"Yes, Jook," Gorruk replied. "But—"
"You will address me in the proper manner!" Jook bellowed. Both giants, staggered by drink, lurched to their hinds; the yellow scent of their mutual anger exploded into the air. Subtly concealed doors burst open, and a dozen armed members of the palace guard burst into the chamber, powerful snub-blasters aimed to kill. Air circulators kicked in.
Gorruk, exceedingly clever, was also extraordinarily courageous. The general, standing erect, deigned not to look at the guards.
"You will address me in the proper manner," Jook said smoothly, an imperious smile creeping over the wide expanse of his grainy features.
"Yes, Exalted One," Gorruk said at last, smiling only with his mouth.
Jook laughed, a ground-shaking rumble. He dismissed the guards with an impatient jerk of his beaker, splashing wine. "Oh, too well do I understand you," he sneered, nodding his monstrous head. "Yes, it is difficult being the general, my comrade; but it is far more difficult being the emperor-general."
"I must defer," the surly general snarled without sincerity.
Jook poured another great vessel of wine. "Tell me, General Gorruk, what is your opinion on this matter of the aliens?"
Gorruk' s intellect struggled to rein in his fury. With effort he suppressed his bile and focused on the new subject, little improving his temperament. "The aliens…my leader?" he snorted. "Routed into space for another four hundred years, perhaps forever. History taught us well."
"Hmm, I wonder," Jook replied. "What have we really learned?"
"Your Excellency?"
"Who knows what really happened four hundred years ago?" Jook asked.
"We were attacked from space, and the decadent governments of the nobility were destroyed. The generals defended the planet."
"And ruled with wisdom and perfection ever since. You have read too much official history, General," Jook said, growing introspective. "Our planet was attacked, but by whom, by what? The generals did not defend the planet—the attackers just went away. They just went away."
"But the Rule of Generals was established all the same," Gorruk said. "The noble houses lost their hold on power, and—"
"And our planet has never been the same," Jook interrupted. "The global trade networks and economic exchange agreements that were natural extensions of the noble houses were never reimplemented. The hemispheres became separated by more than just the equatorial deserts."
"But we have solved our problems," Gorruk said, amazed at Jook' s revisionism. "Our populations no longer overwhelm our resources. We have not suffered famine in over two hundred years, and crime is all but eliminated."
"True," Jook agreed. "Famine has been superseded; it is a poor government that allows its soldiers to die of starvation."
"Our armies have united the entire northern hemisphere," Gorruk said. "Given the right conditions we will reunite the planet. We will make possible a global prosperity and security that never before existed, even under the nobility."
"So says the history written by our militant ancestors," Jook said. "I am told the nobility read from different volumes."
"Bah," Gorruk said. "Their version of history is irrelevant."
"And yet our noble friends are not so helpless," Jook said. "They have assumed positions of responsibility and power in all the technologies and sciences—and even the military. And they have regained power in five southern hemisphere countries. Perhaps they are trying to rewrite history, eh, General?"
"Perhaps. And perhaps after we have conquered those renegade southern nations we should clean the vermin out of all houses."
"Hmm, it has been considered," Jook mused. "But no one has yet figured out how to make the economy run without our noble friends. The global economy has never been as robust as it was before the Rule of Generals. Even without kingdoms to rule, the nobility control the purses of the world."
"Our world has changed, Your Excellency," Gorruk responded. "Do not forget, during the Reign of Ollant the nobility directly controlled both the northern and southern prosperity spheres—a significant advantage."
"True," Jook said. "The southern tribes are spiteful and noncooperative. The deserts have given them false security for too long.
"We shall fix that!" Gorruk exclaimed. "My armies will be ready."
"Yes," Jook said, "but in the meantime, we should not overlook other opportunities. Let us return to this matter of the aliens. Our Minister of Internal Affairs believes the second invasion was different—"